


to perish in fire and water

by WingedFlight



Series: In Some Darker Age [6]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Apocalypse, Deplorable Word, Gen, Last Battle AU, Northern Witches, witchy jill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27868113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedFlight/pseuds/WingedFlight
Summary: After Jill speaks the Deplorable Word, everything is very empty and very quiet. But no one who has tasted the Deep Magic can ever really die.
Series: In Some Darker Age [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1150886
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	to perish in fire and water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loveandrockmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandrockmusic/gifts).



> While the majority of stories in the A Darkened Narnia series are intended as stand-alone Dark AUs, this piece is different: it’s ended up as a sequel to _by the blood of the stars_ and a more vague companion to _however deep the magic lies_. I therefore highly recommend reading both those stories before this one.

"Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?" asked the Witch.

"Let us say I have forgotten it," answered Aslan gravely. "Tell us of this Deep Magic."

"Tell you?" said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. "Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the scepter of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to kill.... And so that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property... unless I have blood as the Law says all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water."

"It is very true," said Aslan, "I do not deny it."

\- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Chapter 13

* * *

In the darkest copse of a near-dead forest, a witch slides a stone knife across her palm. The stone is sharp as any iron-wrought blade; it splits the skin with barely a whisper. Dark crimson blood spills into the waiting chalice.

The witch passes the knife to her apprentice. The girl cuts her hand swiftly, without a sound. Her blood is added to the chalice, bright and hot. Each drop sizzles as it lands.

The witch is pleased.

She takes the knife back from her apprentice and uses the still-bloodied blade to cut a single slice from a silver apple. At her bidding, the apprentice opens her mouth; the witch lays the slice of fruit on her tongue. 

“By the taste of the Deep Magic and the writ of the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, our blood mingles and we are forever bound,” she intones. “You are now a part of the Great Sisterhood. You now share in our every right and our every responsibility. Our fury is your fury. Our mercy is your mercy. And so it shall be until the very end of days.” 

The new witch swallows the fruit and repeats: “So it shall be.” She closes her hand and breathes in the power of the world.

Her teacher’s eyes soften. “Welcome, Jaska.” 

+

_ (Welcome, Gwendolyn.  _

_ Welcome, Liln.  _

_ Welcome, Lasaraleen and Swanwyte and Helen. _

_ Welcome.) _

_ + _

“Welcome, Jill,” says Jaska sweetly.

They are in the deepest chamber of her underground city, where the heat of Bism rises up through the stone floor. Jill has cupped her hands together, fingers folded over the deep cut in her palm. Her eyes are bright.

“Listen closely,” Jaska tells her. “I will recount to you now the secret histories of our Sisterhood, the first of which is our greatest power, our greatest responsibility, and our greatest burden. It is by the strength of this Secret alone that the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea granted our matriarch her duties and her rewards. It is said by some that the Emperor would not suffer us witches to live if not for the power this Secret contains. Do you understand?”

Jill’s mouth has gone dry. She nods, silent. 

“Our binding ceremony permits me to tell you this Secret once, and once only. Listen close, join in our burden, and pray that you never have need to utter this Deplorable Word.” 

* * *

The world is empty.

There are no people anymore. No creatures. No spirits nor animals nor plants. Everything and anything that has ever been alive in this world is now gone. Nothing is left but stone and dirt and salt water and petrified wood and, sometimes, the hint of a breeze across the back of Jill’s neck. 

The world is silent. The ocean waves make barely a sound as they lap over the stone, growing steadily closer and closer to her position. Sometimes, she thinks she hears the wind moan in the distance but could as easily put that down to wishful thinking. Once, she tosses a pebble just to hear the clatter of its impact. Once, she clears her throat but cannot think of anything to say. 

There’s no one to say it to. And anyway, she’s already said the last Word worth anything.

The world is cold. The stars winked out from the sky in unison with every life snuffed out down below. Even the sun is gone, and the only remaining light and heat comes from the pale glowing ball Jill has conjured overhead. It is not much, certainly not enough to keep anyone alive. If it were possible for her to die, she would have succumbed to the cold or the hunger or the sheer loneliness long ago. 

She is sitting at the top of a hill once known as Aslan’s Howe. Before the end of the world, she’d visited this holy site and run her fingers over the letters cut so deep into the stone table that even thousands of years could not wear them away. The Lady had taught her to read these letters, had taught her what exactly the inscriptions meant.  _ The world will perish in fire and water, _ she’d said. Now, Jill watches the water creep a little closer with every hour--if hours still count for anything anymore--and wonders why she never saw any flame. 

The interior of the Howe looks different after the world has ended. When she first reached the hill, she’d gone inside and found every tunnel and cavern on the verge of collapse. Jill had moved swiftly, though falling stones would be more hindrance than danger to her, all the way to the deepest chamber. Even the stone table itself seemed to lack something, as if the one Word she’d spoken had rendered the entire thing meaningless. Jill had not liked to look at it; instead, she reached into the hidden cavity at its base and removed her prize to safer ground. 

She has not let go of the stone knife since. 

The world is empty and Jill is alone and she feels neither sadness nor triumph. She is weary down to her bones and her throat is still hoarse from the Word. She feels hollowed out. The knife is much heavier than she remembered. 

For all the power that has sung through her veins, Jill has never healed the white scar that crosses her left palm. She still remembers the sting of the blade, the sound of her dripping blood, the smile of the Lady’s approval. She remembers the sweetness of the apple’s juice on her tongue, and the Lady speaking of oaths and secrets. Jill remembers looking forward to the day she’d standing on the other side of that chalice, welcoming a new witch to the sisterhood. 

No chance of that now. There’s no one left to teach because she’s destroyed them all. 

The weight of the world has always been heavy. Only now does she realize how much heavier it becomes when there’s no one left to share the burden. 

“I protected you,” she whispers to the empty wasteland. “I sacrificed  _ so much _ for you. I lied, I fought, I betrayed. I did absolutely everything I could, again and again and again, and I never asked for anything.” Her voice rises and the wind rises with it. “I gave  _ everything _ to keep Narnia safe! And it worked. It  _ worked. _ Until you _ threw me away like trash.” _

As the wind strengthens, it stirs up the waves. The water splashes against the base of Aslan’s Howe, sending a salty mist into the air. Jill stands firm, clenching the hilt of the knife in her fist. “What was the point?” she shouts to the sky. “What was the point of saving Narnia if I was only going to come back and end everything? What was the point of any of it?” 

The wind gusts against her clothes, tangles her hair, and sends another spray of saltwater into the glow of her blue light. Jill screams, loud and primal and wordless. She rears back her arm and then hurls the stone knife with all the force she can muster. It glints once as it spins to the edge of the glow and then it is gone, like all of everything else, into the dark. 

Jill closes her eyes, sinks to her knees, and asks softly, “What was even the point?” 

* * *

In one of the oldest legends of the world, it was said that Father Time would wake at the very end of days. He would rise from his slumber like a great black shadow against the sky, blowing upon his trumpet while squeezing out the sun with his giant fist. 

But there were other doomsday myths, too. For at least a thousand years, a majority of Calormenes had believed the end would come when Tash finally closed all six of his eyes at once. Most islanders expected an apocalypse when the ocean waters finally drained over the edges of the world. There’d even been a rumour once, a very long time ago, that the world would only last as long as the life of a silver apple tree. 

(The tree had long ago died, and the world had continued on without it.) 

Once upon a time, Jadis had witnessed a civilization’s end. There were no gods involved, no environmental disasters. Just a Word that burned her throat and a sun that scorched the ground. She had sat on a throne and waited a millennium and then, at last, followed children from one world to another to another again. 

There, she waited and watched. She acted. 

And she slept. 

For a long time, she slept. 

+

The stone knife slips beneath the waves without a sound. It is a heavy thing but the currents are enough to toss it forward and back, end over end, as it sinks. The hilt touches down first, the water teasing the blade upward once more before the knife settles against the rocky bottom. 

The Deep Magic shivers.

And Jadis wakes. There is ice in her hair and a horn in her hand. 

* * *

When Jill sees the movement at the edge of her blue glow, she believes it to be a trick of the eyes. The wind has fallen still again, the waters are smooth and glassy. Nothing at all has happened for hours. 

(Days? Months? She can no longer tell.)

But the movement happens again: a ripple spreading outward from a single point. As Jill watches, a slender figure takes shape, wading towards her through the seawater. The blue light casts everything into strange washed-out colours; the woman looks ghostly and unreal. But the water ripples with her steps, and a laugh trills across the distance, and Jill knows even before she can make out the green hue of the skirt just who has returned to her at the end of all things. 

Jill uncurls, her limbs stiff from so long without movement. Thin sheets of ice slough off her arms and back as she stands, shattering to the ground. Awkward steps carry her forward; she slithers down the side of the Howe to land lightly in the frigid, ankle-deep water. Jill stumbles once, catches her balance, and splashes toward the woman as ice continues to slide free of her hair and clothes. 

“My Lady?” she cries, disbelieving, and the responding laugh is like a chorus of bells. 

To learn that one is not the only being in an entire world is a truly indescribable feeling. Jill falls forward into the Lady’s arms, sobbing with relief and joy and a whole myriad of other emotions. She has believed herself to have been utterly emptied; now, the dam has broken, the ice has cracked, and she discovers there are still depths within her heart. 

“My dearest Jill,” says the Lady Jaska, cupping her face and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I am here now. You are not alone.” And then, most wonderfully of all: “You have done well.” 

+

Both witches lift their heads at the call of the horn. 

“She has woken,” says the Lady, “We must go.” 

_ Who has woken, _ Jill almost asks, except she knows already. Only one has the power to summon witches in this world. So instead, she asks, “Where?” 

The Lady gestures. “We are Northern Witches. We go to the North.” But she sees how unsatisfying this answer is and relents, “We go to the Secret Hill.” 

And so they travel together across the flooded wastes, Jill’s light following behind like their own personal moon. Where the water is too deep, the Lady commands stones to rise from the depths and picks her way easily across this floating path. They gleam in the blue light. Jill follows, careful but trusting, and the Lady does not let her fall. 

Sometimes, in the darkness just outside her light’s reach, Jill thinks she sees the twisted shapes of ruined castles or watchtowers. Once, the Lady leads her beneath a crumbling arch where a simple message has been carved into the stone.  _ Here we are, _ the letters read, and Jill frowns before moving on. 

They walk for an achingly long time, until the soles of Jill’s shoes have worn down to nothing. She tosses the leather scraps aside and continues barefoot, aware of every pebble beneath her toes. 

Eventually, the land rises higher than the seawater. Even with her limited light, Jill recognizes the Ettinsmoor, though it looks emptier and lonelier than ever without the giants who once guarded the way. In the shadows beneath the remaining boulders, she can almost see three figures huddled together for warmth; when she breathes in deep, she can almost smell the smoke of a wiggle’s pipe. 

The Lady stops and points to a cliff looming over their path. “Up there,” she tells Jill, “is where I first saw you.” 

Jill thinks, _ I was an entirely different person then. _

She does not know if she misses the girl she had been. 

* * *

Once upon a time, Jill did everything she could to save Narnia. 

Once upon a time, it had worked. 

But things never happen the same way twice. 

+

From the instant she’d returned from England, Jill knew things would be different. She could smell it in the air: this world had changed. The magic that once breathed through the land, the trees, the waters and the spirits was tainted and weak. The countenances of every creature she met were twisted with hopelessness. 

But she hadn’t said anything, not immediately. Not when Eustace Scrubb was at her side, desperate as always to make a difference. And she’d allowed herself to think that maybe, just maybe, she could save Narnia again. 

She was in the midst of battle when she finally accepted that despite everything she had done, everything  _ they _ had done, Narnia was already lost. 

(Jill had paused, lowering her bow. She could see the last king of Narnia fighting against the invaders but she didn’t need the whispers of her magic to know he had not the strength to prevail. She could see dwarves laughing and jeering, horses screaming. The unicorn reared and was cut down. The donkey had already been slain. Eustace was cutting a path through the enemy, but even the most skilled swordsman could not hold for long against--

Even from the distance, she saw the sword slide into Eustace’s chest.)

Eustace was lost. Narnia was lost. Narnia had, in truth, been lost long before this battle. Jill did not know how to fight this, did not know how to save a country already in its death throes. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, though Eustace was no longer there to hear, “I tried everything else.” 

She let her bow fall to the ground, opened her mouth, and uttered a Word. 

A single, Deplorable Word. 

* * *

Six other witches are waiting for them on the Secret Hill, lit golden-red by the fire-stones they stand upon. As one, they turn while Jaska leads Jill up the ancient steps. The stone is rough under her bare feet, every surface carved with deep-cut runes. The same runes, Jill thinks, as those engraved upon the stone table beneath Aslan’s Howe.

“Welcome, Jill Pole,” says the oldest of the witches. Her long hair hangs loose over her shoulders, bleached white by dark magics. Her face is thin but not wan, her eyes sharp and perceptive, her silver dress absolutely pristine despite the fact that she stands in the middle of an apocalyptic wasteland. She radiates power like an ice-cold sun.

No introduction is needed. Jill recognizes the founder of their Sisterhood, the reason all the rest of them are there, the one who brought the Deplorable Word across the boundaries of the worlds and caused it to be passed down the ages until it reached Jill’s lips. This is Jadis, the last Queen of Charn, the White Witch of Narnia, Mother of all Northern Witches.

Jill falls to her knees. 

“Some of us have been asleep for a very long time,” says Jadis. “Waiting for you, Jill Pole. Thank you.” 

Astonished, Jill lifts her head. The White Witch looks down at her with shockingly gentle eyes. She holds out a hand. Jill takes it and rises and says, “Why would you thank me? I ended everything.” 

“Because all things end,” says the White Witch, “And someone must do it. In speaking the Deplorable Word, you have saved Narnia from the worse fate of prolonged agony and dwindling hopes. You gave her a swift and merciful end, Jill. And that is why I thank you.” 

“But we did not die with her.” 

“No,” says the Witch. “We cannot ever really die. No one can who has tasted the Deep Magic.”

Jill looks from the White Witch to the others assembled together. She knows all their names, has learned each of their stories: Lasaraleen and Liln, Gwendolyn the Sweet, Swanwyte of the Waters, Helen the First Queen. And, of course: Jaska of the Green Kirtle, her teacher and sponsor. 

“But what do we do now?” asks Jill, turning back to the mother of them all. “The world is ended. There’s nothing left.” 

“We are left,” says Jaska, fiercely. 

“But we need not stay,” says the White Witch. “There is Deep Magic in all worlds, if you look close enough. And where there is Deep Magic, there is a place for witches.” 

+

The stones of the Secret Hill form a natural pentagram. Now, six of the witches begin the final preparations, while the oldest of them pulls the youngest aside. Facing out into the darkness, with the fire-stone glow at their backs, White Witch says, “Look once more upon this land and remember all you have done.” 

The glow hardly reaches beyond the hill but Jill finds neither the darkness nor the distance obscure her view. She can see every dip of the land, every jagged stone, every white-capped wave, every sagging ruin. She remembers what she has done, both the good and the bad. 

“It was not for nothing,” says the White Witch, and she looks so sad that Jill recognizes something within the woman--something that has remained the same despite all her outward changes over the centuries. 

“Susan,” she says, wonderingly. 

And the White Witch smiles gently, and leads her back to the pentagram.

+

In the end, all it takes to leave is a prepared pentagram and a single word. Jill closes her eyes and feels the water wash over her. 

**Author's Note:**

> To anyone wondering how Susan could be Jadis, you can read the time-twisted story in _however deep the magic lies_.   
> For more witchy Jill, check out _by the blood of the stars_.   
> Both these other stories are preceding works in this same A Darkened Narnia series that contains this fic. 
> 
> Thank you to larm for inspiring me with this spectacular prompt: Jill learns the Deplorable Word and uses it to end the Last Battle and Aslan himself. She and Susan walk the ashes of what once was Narnia and mourn what they have lost and sacrificed to maintain their autonomy.


End file.
